First Indochina War Ended 60 Years Ago [Photo]

A wounded Vietminh prisoner is given first aid by Franco Vietnamese medicals after hot fire fight near Hung Yen, south of Hanoi, 1954. US Department of Defense

On this date in 1954 the first Indochina War officially ended. After a long war in Viet Nam, culminating in the nearly four month battle of Dien Bien Phu, the French withdrew under the the Geneva Acccords. That agreement also also divided Viet Nam along the 17th parallel under the condition that a unification election would be held two years later. When elections didn't happen as planned, the communist Viet Minh fought to reclaim the South, which eventually drew the United States deeper into the fight between the Communists and Western-backed South Vietnamese government.

A French Foreign Legionnaire goes to war along the dry rib of a rice paddy, during a recent sweep through communist-held areas in the Red River Delta, between Haiphong and Hanoi. Behind the Legionnaire is a U.S. gifted tank, 1954. US Department of Defense